One mobile phone company in our country is using a choir of children singing the song "Waltzing Matilda". Asked by my mother about the song, I looked for it on the google. As a good freak, I discovered a different story from what I'd expected. Because of the title, I thought about a dance and a girl. But the truth is that the song talks about carrying your goods in a bag while travelling on food. This song is considered as one of the unofficial Australian anthems and is used in many sporting events, especially those related to rugby. I found the following video on youtube, which talks about the plot and mentions vocabulary which is specifically Australian, and some of these wordsa are old-fashioned, too. There are some typical symbols from Australia as well.
Some of the vocabulary you can find:
swagman: Swag is a bed roll which bundle the belongings of a man, the swagman, who travelled the country looking for a job
Waltzing means to travel while working as a craftsman
Matilda is the swag, in a metaphoric way, giving it the name of a woman, since it was the only companion of the swagman.
billabong: a pool of deep water
billy: a little tin for boiling water.
Jumbuck: a sheep
tucker bag: a bag for carrying tucker, which means food.
squatter: big land owner
troopers: policemen
Can you tell me what's the plot of the song?
1 comment:
Although I had heard several times about the song, this is the first time that I hear it, and I can say one thing: this guy vocalyzes too much to be australian... maybe they speak clearer when they sing? should I ask them to sing instead of talk? ;)
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